Hellfire
by bhut
Summary: Or: why Grant Ward with Inhuman powers is a very bad idea. Set in S3/post S3, AU, dark. Now updated with another version of Hellfire Ward and co.!
1. Chapter 1

**Hellfire**

 _Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Marvel™._

 _Note: this story contains character deaths._

The man was bound, both hand and foot, in some heavy, almost customized, chains. Overwhelmingly big on many an average person, on him they appeared to be somewhere between not big enough and just right.

The man was bound, motionless.

Occasionally he would shift, not so much as to make himself comfortable – the chains that bound the cuffs were also connected to the wall behind him (and there was nothing else in his cell), so he could not make himself comfortable at all – but he would still shift.

A door opened, and two men stepped through. The one of the left was Lance Hunter, a grimmer and older version of the once easy-going mercenary, who lost his old nature a long time before he lost his dignity and most of his S.H.I.E.L.D. underlings and coworkers to Grant Ward's Hydra. When capturing him and Bobbi Morse, a long time ago, Grant had broken him, not through pain, but through pleasure, giving him multiple orgasms (admittedly stimulated) as often as he could, while Bobbi watched – and eventually he released them both.

Both Hunter and Morse survived, but their relationship did not. Bobbi left Hunter and S.H.I.E.L.D. for good, undergoing the T.A.H.I.T.I. to mend her broken heart, while Hunter became Ward's sworn enemy and one of the more dedicated S.H.I.E.L.D. agents ever.

Ward did not care. He knew who the physically better man was, and that was good enough for him. Let Lance climb the cloudy peaks, he once said, as he showed the smaller man the finger and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. Lance Hunter had lost it back then and tried to kill Grant – as he always did – and Grant defeated him once more, for the more they fought, the sloppier Lance appeared to become, which was good for the course of Hydra-

Ward did not care. He had gone caring about most things a long time ago.

The one on the right was Phil Coulson, and he did not change at all, save that he had finally replaced his missing arm with a cybernetic one – a gift from both Fitz and Mack, no doubt. (They still had not found Jemma Simmons, though Leo did not give up hope – but Ward did not care.) Otherwise, Coulson was still the same.

"Ward," he said evenly without any fake good cheer that he had used on the younger man before. "We meet again."

Ward said nothing. Both Coulson and his protégés, (Hunter and Johnson, never Skye, never again), tended to talk, a bit too much, in Ward's opinion. Ward did not care, but he found this sort of thing useful on occasion. He also knew that Coulson, at least, knew about his opinion and did not care much about it, which was just as Ward wanted – and with enough time, Ward tended to get what he wanted. He wanted Coulson to stop treating him as an insignificant, second-rate enemy – and it worked. He wanted Coulson to realize that he was dealing with a leader of men rather than just a skilled assassin – and it worked. He wanted to realize that making Grant Ward into his enemy was a monumentally bad idea – and it worked.

And why was he here? Because just a brief while ago Grant Ward decided to be captured by S.H.I.E.L.D. after seasons of combat – and it worked.

"Do you know why you're here?" Coulson continued nonchalantly.

"Why am I not stone?" Grant finally spoke, gathering all of his wits together – Coulson was more cunning than a fox and still the smarter man out of the two (even if Hunter was in the equation, which he was not). "I am not an alien like those Secret Warriors are!"

(Speaking of Secret Warriors, Grant had noticed some shadows out of corner of his eye – it was probably them, Johnson and her lieutenant, Lincoln. Ward did not care. He had feelings for Johnson once – but that was a long time ago. Whatever feelings he had for her had died back then. Johnson never realized this, of course – she was more stubborn than even Hunter was, perhaps because unlike Hunter she was not an asshat. She was many things, but not an asshat. Ward did not care. Johnson could believe whatever she wanted to – their paths had diverged a long time ago, if they ever had been on the same page. He doubted that now.)

"...Yes, you sort of are," Coulson admitted, looking almost embarrassed. "When a rogue faction of Inhumans tried to destroy the world – you were too busy torturing Morse at that time to realize that, of course – the crystals, their bioweapon got into the sea, into sea fish and into fish-based products that people ate and used."

"Another glorious victory for S.H.I.E.L.D.," Ward spoke up to stay in character that he had created for Coulson. "The main threat dealt with and a lot of new ones left behind to provide the organization for years with work. Bravo!" He twitched as if to clap his hands, forgetting about the restraints.

"You bastard," Hunter growled. Ward did not care about him, so he made eye contact with him, and as always Hunter looked away: he could not endure Ward's gaze, but then again, few people could, not even in Hydra.

"...Anyways," Coulson sighed, drawing Ward's attention back to himself, "people _had_ been ingesting alien substances for a while now, and the results are beginning to show. You – are one of those results."

"...that's not a reason _not_ to shoot me," Ward shrugged. He was almost ready, but he could use Coulson talking for another five minutes or so.

"No, it's not," Coulson agreed, deceptively mildly, before lashing out at the younger man – verbally at this point. "Grant, you had a chance to become a good man, perhaps even a hero! What you did instead was to become a monster, a Hydra agent of the old school!"

"I had – at first – just some grass-root Neo-Nazis under my control, few reluctant allies at AIM, and a need to keep Strucker and List happy," Ward replied in a raspy voice, unused to talking. "Of course I had to fall back onto the old school to make it work. Why am I here?"

"You didn't have to fall back onto the old school of anything; you didn't have to join Hydra in the first place," Coulson snapped. "All of what happened happened by your own choosing!"

"Not this," Ward lied. "I would rather just shoot you on sight; you would rather shoot me on sight, so why am I here, again?" he was almost done with the whole thing, including Coulson, so he would rather not here the older man rant.

"Because out of _all_ the Hydra forces that you have mastered, this time, you were one of the _few_ that survived," Hunter ground out. "Between the fish products and the human-Inhuman inbreeding going on for a long time, you had just enough alien DNA to survive and to gain powers."

"So you're going to shoot me _here_?" Ward shrugged. "You really like unnecessarily complex plans here at S.H.I.E.L.D."

"No you idiot!" Coulson snapped. "You're an Inhuman now, not just a man! You may have powers – useful powers – powers that can be used to make the world a better place, not worse! You have one final last chance to make something out of yourself other than a bloodthirsty killer and thug! A murderer!"

"I have powers," Ward replied thoughtfully, playing along for one final time. "That would mean what? Working under S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Quake? Or Daisy? What is the name she has nowadays, anyways...?"

"It means working in her division, under her supervision, nothing more," Coulson ground out, sounding about as unhappy as Ward usually did for the first time. (Usually he hid his feelings better.) "Whatever you thought you once had with her had died, killed by your actions - again. Do not try to hurt her with your delusions, Ward, or else you _will_ be shot-"

Coulson did not finish. In a blaze of hellfire Ward's restraints melted away, and as the younger man rose to his feet, he drove his flaming hands into Hunter and Coulson, setting them afore, both flesh and clothing.

"You won't have to worry about that, _sir_ ," Ward, or rather – Hellfire, smiled a jagged-tooth grin. "I just wanted to know her _name_."

As the corpses twisted and cracked, Hellfire reached for the dropped ICER of Coulson, even as fire alarms went off drenching everything, including him with water, covering the cell with steam that obscured the view – but not fast enough for a wave of vibration to surge through the cell, slamming into Hellfire and carrying him away – into the back wall, and out of sight.

"Phil, Phil, are you okay?" agent Quake – also known as Skye – rushed into the room, followed by her loyal shadow, Lincoln. "Hunter was right – that animal should've been shot right then and there."

A shot _is_ fired – from an ICER. That is usually harmless, (well, relatively harmless), for this is an electricity-based stun gun – not a real one. Usually. When it is discharged into three or so inches of water, the situation is different. Especially for Lincoln, whose own Inhuman powers are already electricity-based and should not be used in water.

"Yiii!"

Lincoln 'discharges'. Violently. It is Skye's turn to be blown off her feet and slammed into the opposite wall. Lincoln is not so lucky. He just goes splat.

Shaken and hurt, but still alive, Skye looked around. Someone crawled out of fog – and it's Ward, Grant, Hellfire, her 'robot'. His gaze, lately emotionless and black, flat and cold, is currently glowing with an unholy red light, making the T-1000 jokes (jokes that had been made a long time ago, a time when they were innocent and happy) look _particularly_ unfunny.

"Ward," Skye croaked, as she tried to fire off another wave of vibrations – this time to no effect. She is still a powerful warrior, a force to be reckoned, but her old, her first S.O. was always better than she was in a melee combat. His hands, burned with fire, clump upon her throat with an unexpected strength. "Please. Robot..."

Hellfire gazed at her. He remembered her - the woman that he thought had loved at first, but now feels nothing at all what so ever. What he had felt for _Kara Lynn_ was true love, but he failed to realize it before it was too late, and now Kara Lynn is gone forever – all he can do now is to make a pyre out of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s bones. "Good-bye, Rookie," he said calmly. "You should've killed me a long time ago instead." With the last ounce of strength he snapped her neck – before collapsing himself, dead at last after a life of sorrow.

...In less than twenty minutes other agents began to arrive – but it was too late. All they had now had were several corpses; each one damaged beyond resurrection, and even cloning would not probably work. It was not exactly a disaster, (though Quake was one of the candidates to succeed Hill and Fury as S.H.I.E.L.D. leaders, so her death does through S.H.I.E.L.D. politics into some disarray, as do the deaths of Hunter and Coulson), but it is a tragedy; some agents (like Dr. Fitz, who has never fully recovered after the loss of his friend and lab partner, Jemma Simmons) have to be put onto a suicide watch – but as a whole S.H.I.E.L.D. goes on.

...Still, the Golden age that S.H.I.E.L.D. was supposed to have after Hydra had fallen at last feels somewhat tarnished, all the same.

End

 **Author's Notes**

 **...Yes, there's no doubt – this sort of thing will never come to pass; odds are, Grant will die by himself, abandoned and alone, or will find redemption and return to S.H.I.E.L.D. as a better, redeemed man, but right now? The long odds favor the first version, and here is where Hellfire comes in.**

 **Hellfire was a character in the Secret Warriors' story arc; a character, who joined Fury's elite group of agents with powers to battle Skrulls, Leviathan, Hydra, but eventually betrayed his team to Hydra but tried to fudge the odds so that agent Quake, also known as Daisy, could survive. Gee, wonder whom he sounds like? Yes, like Ward, save that Hellfire was able to manifest flames and use them to explode things (somewhat similarly to how Gambit from X-men can), and a while ago there were rumors of Grant developing some sort of flame-related powers in S3. Hellfire, hello, let us make things go whoosh!**

 **...Needless to say, this will be very bad news, for by now Grant has moved beyond S.H.I.E.L.D. and beyond Skye due to Kara Lynn's death; he has no ties with them and will not do their jobs for them, not anymore. By now, he has fully signed onto team Hydra, which is monumentally stupid – right now, Hydra is little more than grass-root Neo-Nazis, who'll probably sell out Ward to Coulson or anyone else due to a minimal reward or threat and are simply no match for S.H.I.E.L.D. Ward too will not do anything good for Hydra – whatever else he is, a leader he is not. He will either become a hero once more or die as a villain, alone; because "Agents" seem to have designated him as a main villain of the show, odds are on the last option; but if he does, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s victory over him will be costly, including to the main cast until the bitter end.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hellfire, take 2**

 _Disclaimer: see previous chapter._

 _Note: evil Ward is evil. So're Kara and Werner. This is not a redemptive AU. This piece contains some disturbing material. If you're still reading it, you were warned._

...Things have largely come to a head on the 15th day of the return from the alien planet, when Leo Fitz finally couldn't help it and spilled the beans to Jemma Simmons - about the alien planet, Will, Grant Ward and everything. Jemma, who at the best of times could be rather shrill, promptly exploded.

"Sir, how could you?" she promptly asked Phil Coulson, currently - the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. (according to Fury, anyhow). "You knew that Ward had captured me and Fitz, and you still used his brother to rile Grant up further. You really didn't care about us - all you cared about was your revenge?!"

"They have a point, Phil," May said impassively: until Jemma, followed by Leo, had burst on the scene, the two of them, alongside 'HuntingBird' and 'Static Quake' were planning their new anti-Hydra campaign, but now that they too were 'in the know', she decided to weigh in. "This sort of thing...it isn't us. We were supposed to be better this. Couldn't you have just shot him in the head?"

"Maybe," Coulson confessed. "Look, I, I wasn't thinking straight. Rosalind...I don't know what she meant to me and why. Grant Ward...he was out for revenge...he took it. It's just that, I don't know...he knew what he had lost, hadn't he? He wasn't as stupid or crazy as he looked, was he?" A pause. "Well, maybe he was. Maybe we shouldn't have cut a deal with his elder brother, who was a rather shifty character overall himself. Maybe we should've just put him into T.A.H.I.T.I. from the start - helpful information or not, in the end he proved to be much more trouble than what he was worth. I just...for a while he honestly was useful; I just tried to give him one last chance..."

There was a knock on the door. "What?" Phil snapped as he opened the door. "We're a bit busy here right now-" he fell silent as the supposedly deceased Grant Ward reached out and pulled him upwards by the throat.

"Hey, Phil," he said cheerfully with an easy smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Hey, everybody. Missed me? I'm not dead yet, it seems."

"We were just discussing you...Coulson broke your chest, I saw it," Leo said weakly, even as he moved in front of Jemma. There was something new about Grant, something that he, for one, couldn't pick his finger on - he was being too busy being distracted by Coulson, who was being dangled in Grant's grip with all the finesse or focus of a particularly vicious dog carrying around a particularly nasty rat.

"I know," Grant nodded solemnly as he sat down onto a nearby empty chair. He released Coulson, changed his mind, grabbed him again, and punched him, hard, into the plexus. Judging by how the older man paled and just listlessly sat down, all the fight was gone out of him, at least for the moment.

"You were right, Leo," Grant continues evenly, with the same hollow smile on his face. "Coulson did kill me - sort of. He crushed my chest, so I should've died. What he forgot about was the alien that you killed."

"Really?" Leo looked bashful. "What and how-?"

"Malick had it wrong," Grant shrugged. "He's a delusional dirtbag, so of course he got it wrong. The alien wasn't a destroyer, it was a healer and a symbiont. Mind you, like so many alien 0-8-4s, like the Asgardian staff and the witch that came later, it had a price attached to it, and I'm not just talking about his interest in genitalia - especially human genitalia, thanks to Jemma."

"...What're you talking about?" Jemma finally managed to squeak (yes, the FitzSimmons still had issues regarding human genitalia, even each other's).

"Simmons, for months you've been stuck with a man who hadn't had a woman - or a man - in years and yet nothing happened between the two of you? Trust me, you're nowhere as ugly as you think - you were just lucky that Will had needed several months to figure out how the human psyche works in connection to the genitals-"

"Ok!" Jemma yelled shrilly. "Enough with the sex organs! What do you want?!"

"As I was saying," Grant shrugged, "he didn't want to die, I didn't want to die, he wanted off the planet, I wanted off the planet, so we made a deal. It took us some arguing - neither of us was what the other expected or wanted to have, but in the end we made a deal, we came back to Earth, Malick had a sudden case of unexpected death and dissappearance - in that order - and then I passed Will on." He paused.

"Speaking of death and dissappearance, sir," the young von Strucker - Werner - spoke up as he entered the conference room with an odd bundle in his hands. "It's about the rat."

"Ah, yes. To continue in this vein, Thomas was just as suddenly and mysteriously flayed alive," Grant nodded, as he unfolded the bundle. It was a shirt of some sort, made out of...human skin, however crudely. "In a totally unrelated event I'm here, on this base, as is the young von Strucker, who had done something similar to Fanucci and his son-"

"They thought that they could rob me and mine under Malick's guidance," Werner's smile was very disturbing, to say it lightly. "But Malick is gone, Carmichael cut his losses widely and hid, and Fanucci...WTF did he think I was? Harry Potter?"

"It's possible," Grant replied in a flat tone of voice. "Sometimes people forget that we live in the real world and just pretend that they're characters in a comic book or something." His fingers lit-up with tiny flickers of flame; he pressed one finger into the table; there is a hiss of smoke, and when he lifts the finger up, there is a burned finger print of his on the table top. "Hm. Cavalry? Don't."

The Cavalry's face was impassive. She was fooling no one.

"To continue - or to conclude - with the story," Grant continued, a semi-thoughtful look on his face. "Me and Will didn't keep company for too long, once he healed my internal damage."

"That he did," agreed a new voice, and Kara Lynn Palamas, former agent 33 of S.H.I.E.L.D., trotted onto the scene, carrying a small handheld camera and a photographer's satchel, complete with props. "Hey, everyone. What did I miss? Grant, you didn't put on Coulson's new wonderful cloak onto him - after all the effort I put into it. We already had to throw away the pants - they were rather befouled, shall we say?"

"I told you not to waste your time on them," Grant's head was shaking in dissapproval. "We were lucky enough with one piece - this one. And we were lucky that after the alien had healed me, he healed you."

"He finished healing me, you mean," Kara gave a small, happy smile to the big man at the head of the table. "You and your cyborgnetics were doing the job just as nicely, if slower."

"Hey, I kept John alive for the last few years of his life, and I had biological entropy to deal with," Grant grinned back, just as happily. "I knew what I was doing back then - unlike when I shot you," he finished, his smile noticably dimming.

"Hey, chin up! You shot me, you fixed me, we're getting there," Kara sat down next to her man in a manner rather reminiscent of Bobbi Morse at her best. "It's a long way to go, but we're there already."

"True," Grant nodded and gave Kara an odd look. "Werner, he told me-"

"You told him?" Kara gave the younger Hydra agent a punch on the shoulder. "You promised! You jerk!"

"Still a better man than Thomas was," Grant said mildly. "But still with issues. Speaking of issue - Jemma's got it, if the discarded pregnancy test in the corridor is anything to go by."

"It isn't hers - it's mine," Bobbi spoke before she can catch herself.

"Really?" Kara shifted her stance and looked the bigger woman right in the eye. "Fascinating. Did you give it a name yet, or are you just calling him junior? I'm asking this, you understand from idle curiosity - the first time we talked in private, I wasn't interested in a pound of your flesh - we were trying to be nice. Now, I've been thinking about a pound of flesh, but honestly? It isn't worth it - there's nothing of worth that you can give me." She gave Bobbi a flat look. "This was how it was with us from the start, wasn't it? I gave you everything, you gave me nothing, because you cannot give anything, you're spiritually impotent."

Lance shifted slightly. Kara immediately hit him in the face, hard, with the hilt of her knife - the same one that she had once almost used on Leo Fitz. Hunter was made out of harder stuff and still reached for his firearm - and found Kara's blade piercing his skin and flesh ever so slightly - another push and it would slice his throat and vocal cords clean through.

"No," Grant was suddenly behind the female former agent and moved her away from Hunter, complete with the knife. "Morse isn't worth it."

"I know," Kara seemed to be shaking something off - something that had hit Hunter as well. "I just, it's just-"

Grant pulled something off his belt - a chain with some sort of a blade at the end. He swung it. Daisy barely had time to register the movement before there was pain on one side of her face, and wetness, and-

"Whoa!" Kara whispered in a much happier tone of voice. "For me?" She kissed him, before getting something from von Strucker. "What's that for? Oh. Put it on?"

Grant nodded, even as he put his own on and the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. were jumping onto their feet, for he had struck the first blow and-

And Grant lit up one of his fingers with a small flame, causing the fire alarm to turn on and spray everyone...no, not with water, but with a mixture of hallucinogenics and aprhodisiacs that Hydra had put into the water ducts precisely for such purpose. And so, Daisy "Skye" Johnson did have her time with Lincoln Campbell (just as Fitz did with Simmons, etc), as she yelled happily (in an insane way): "Take me, you polar bear, 'cause I'm your walrus!" even as the new (but established) Hydra director and his people left S.H.I.E.L.D.'s HQ base.

End


End file.
